The operation of a rotary valve, such as a quarter turn valve, may often require application of considerable torque for opening and closing the valve. The applied force depends on operating conditions, type of valve seals, and so forth. It has long been desirable to reduce the valve operation torque as evidenced in the prior art in which means such as gear boxes and/or chain drive devices have been long used for reducing torque to open and close the valve. However, such torque reduction devices require a significant amount of space due to their bulk. In many situations, bulky torque reduction devices are of limited value due to limited space. Such bulky prior art devices also tend to be expensive. Furthermore, it may be difficult to mount such devices to the valve without a significant amount of special machining and/or additional mounting components, even if suitable mounting space is available.
It would be desirable to have a valve operator that takes up little, if any, additional space as compared to a simple straight shaft valve operator. Although a straight shaft has no reduction at all, it is quite compact except for the size of the wheel or shaft, often removable, used to open and close the valve. Therefore a valve operator that offers reduction of torque yet takes up little or no more space than a simple straight shaft would be highly desirable and fills a long felt need in the industry. Those skilled in the art will appreciate the present invention that addresses these and other problems.